Before the hereafter, 25 writers reflect, each in 140 words or less. Not characters. Because words matter.

Andrew Solomon

Andrew Solomon

At 2 a.m., I couldn't find my wristwatch. Its disappearance seemed a bad omen. I went to bed at 4 a.m., rose a few hours later, reinitiated the search, and found the watch at noon. Greatly relieved, I took a nap, and woke to find my wallet missing. My husband located it just before dinner. I see now that I was practicing for loss. I'm about to publish an optimistic book about how difference unites us, and so the election was a referendum on ideas I've been formulating for a lifetime and writing about for a decade. I longed to see a president who champions diversity, an openly gay senator, endorsements of families such as mine. I'd practiced losing through a lifetime when it seemed like I was fighting tall odds — and oh, how such practice sweetens this righteousness and justice.

--Andrew Solomon is the National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, and Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity, which wil be released November 13.

Chris Hayes

Chris Hayes

I voted first thing in the morning at a public school in Park Slope with my wife and 11-month-old daughter in tow. I've always loved voting; my parents would take me into the booth and let me throw that great, clanking lever. But I was pretty dismayed at the scene at my polling place, where it took over an hour to vote, and the system seemed, well, not so smooth.

And we were lucky: this was a neighborhood where most people could simply e-mail their bosses and say they're running late, in a state where the political establishment isn't committed to keeping people from the polls.

Barack Obama mentioned the long lines around the country and said, "By the way, we've got to fix that." He's right. I hope we don't lose sight of that just because he won.

--Chris Hayes is editor at large of The Nation and host of Up with Chris Hayes on MSNBC (Saturday and Sunday, 8-10 a.m.). He is the author of Twilight of the Elites.